


Lacuna

by Homoexorcism



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bisexual Lance, College Parties, Dark Comedy, F/M, Grief, Hispanic Lance (Voltron), Horror Elements, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loss, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Health Issues, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Puerto Rican Lance, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Science Fiction, Sleep Paralysis, Strange Occurences, Trans Pidge | Katie Holt, assume everything is real, assume nothing is real, best bros klance, black outs, unexplained phenomena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 17:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Homoexorcism/pseuds/Homoexorcism
Summary: Strange occurrences plague Keith following a black-out that leaves him waking up on the side of a road miles away from his off-campus apartment. With more questions than answers, Keith tries to make sense of the mysteries surrounding his lost time but all routes lead to someone he thinks he’s better off forgetting. Life is strange and it’s only about to get much stranger.





	Lacuna

 

There was a part of Keith that was conscious but not fully awake. He was between the waking and sleeping world, a place where dreams are the most vivid and easiest to remember. It was here that a familiar process of rebirth took place. 

His first thought upon re-entry, is that he’s definitely not in his off-campus apartment. His second thought is the unpleasant realization that he can’t move. There’s a heaviness resting on his chest that threatens to make the ground beneath him a tomb. They say everyone’s first instinct when faced with sleep paralysis is to panic, and he does. No amount of sleep paralysis articles littered with ‘tips & tricks’ can ward off that initial panic.

When forcing himself to move proves futile, his breathing quickens. He feels as if he’s choking, as if he can’t quite catch his breath. As if he’ll never catch his breath. His lungs are set ablaze, burning straight through the cavity of his chest to the point that he thinks he might actually be burning alive.

The rational part of his brain wills his fingers to flex until they scrap dirt and he’s snapping into place. He feels a blanket of heat that sinks into his pores and his nostrils flare at the smell of rain soaked earth. Toes curl and fingers sink into the earth.

With a sharp inhale and sputtering cough, mauve eyes snap open only to squint into the sunlight. He stares up at dancing tree canopies and hears water lapping at a shoreline. He’s acutely aware of a throbbing pain that radiates throughout his body. He feels as if he’s been run over by a tractor trailer. And yet, it dulls the longer he’s awake until it’s as if it never existed. He then sits up with the uncomfortable realization that he’s miles away from campus.

It dawns on him that he’s just woken up on the embankment of a river in a park that he’s only been to a hand full of times. When panic should be setting in, it doesn’t. He’s had blackouts before. He’s also slept walk before and truth be told, he’s not sure which of those this is.

_How did I get here?_

He stares down at black jeans that are torn at a bloodied knee. His boots are caked in dried mud and his knuckles are bruised and the skin cracked. With a trembling hand, he runs fingers through sweat-slicked hair.

 _How the_ fuck _did I get here?_

The last thing he remember is revising notes for his Astron 3350 class while listening to Lance get his ass kicked by Hunk in Mario Kart.None of that clues him in how he ended up here, though.

_Lance_

He forces himself to his feet and pats himself down in search of his phone. When he fishes his cell phone out from his back pocket, he finds that the screen is cracked. Upon pressing the ‘home’ button, he’s partially relieved that the screen still works even if part of it is distorted. He finds several texts from Lance.

**Dude did u go 4 one of u weird runs? [4:30 a.m]**

**Its 4 am [4:30 a.m]**

**its 2 early in the sem 4 u 2 b a basket case [4:35 a.m]**

**at least bring back milk [4:48 a.m]**

**keeeeith. Where the fuck r u?  [8:51 a.m]**

**if ur not back in 10 im eating the leftover chinese carton ur coveting [8:53 a.m]**

Keith rolls his eyes as he scrolls past a selfie of Lance smugly devouring the half-eaten carton of Lo Mein with a sloppy chopstick technique.

**ur making me worry pendejo [9:16 a.m.]**

**did u hear about the labs? [ 9:30 a.m. ]**

He glosses over the question regarding the labs as he hastily texts his roommate back.

 

I’m alive [10:10 a.m]

You can call off the search team [10:10 a.m.]

And hope you puke on 2 day old chinese food [10:11 a.m ]

He stuffs the device back into his pocket despite a new chorus of text chimes and climbs the grassy hillside to find his overturned bicycle. The back wheel is spinning with the wind and there’s an unsettling awareness that he has no concept of what’s he been through to get to this point.

With that, panic finally unfurls in his stomach and it tastes of melancholy and regret when it reaches his tongue. He dry-heaves on the side of the road and doesn’t think twice about the sirens in the distance.

* * *

 

Back at the apartment, he carries the bike up the flight of stairs while silently cursing walk-up apartments. A blonde girl on her way down smiles at him only to do a double-take with a grimace. He guesses his face probably doesn’t look a whole lot better than the rest of him.

At the front door, he leans the bike against the wall and fishes out his apartment key only to pause when he sees that he’s missing a charm off his key-ring. The chain is snapped just above where a alien saucer with ‘I Want to Believe’ written across it once hung. It was a cheap X-Files charm that he’d gotten from a childhood friend.

_Shiro_

Their friendship felt like a distant memory. They’d been close friends during childhood but then things shifted. People gravitated towards Shiro in a way that Keith could never keep up with. They found different social circles and the distance between them became a canyon. Keith had been bitter and angry. But any chance of reconciliation was lost after Shiro’s family moved away during high school.

_Must’ve broke last night_

He shoves that melancholy taste down and opens the apartment door where he is greeted with the hum of the microwave in the kitchenette. He can only assume his leftovers weren’t enough to satiate Lance’s appetite. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve sought revenge by stealing whatever gross food was being nuked, but he thought it best to make a beeline for the bathroom to inspect the damage instead.

With the bathroom door locked behind him, he mimics the blonde’s grimace out of reflex. Dried blood ran down his nose in streaky blotches and a bruise radiated up the better half of the right side of his face. His right eyes was starting to swell.

He reaches up with fingers to touch his bruised face, anticipating tenderness and dulling pain. Only, it’s not there. It didn’t hurt. None of it hurt.

Shaky hands turn the faucet on and he splashes cold water onto his face until the water swirls with pink as it goes down the drain. He feels vulnerable.

As he lifts his gaze back up to the mirror, he yanks a towel off the rack and pats his face dry.

”Keith, what the fuck?” Lance kicks at the door. For whatever reason, knocking is an elusive concept.

His only response is an annoyed grunt. It’s only after he’s decided that he looks like shit, does he open the door.

“You look like shit.” Lance reiterates for him.

“Do you sweet talk Hunk like this?” Keith challenges. He’d been third wheel to the duo enough times to see Lance make puppy-eyes at the engineer major whenever he wasn’t looking.

Lance pretends to gag on the thought before shoving a cooling hot-pocket into his mouth. As he sets the other half back on the paper plate in his hand, he leans against the door frame and talks around a mouthful, “Where’d you even go last night? You look like you got mugged.”

Before Keith can answer, Lance’s eyes light up with mocking excitement at the prospect, “Wait, _did_ you get mugged?”

Keith side-steps around his roommate and enters his bedroom with Lance still hot on his trail, “I don’t know.” He answers after a moment, “I can’t remember anything.”

“You serious?” Lance takes another bite of the hot pocket and shrugs a shoulder, “I mean, you left here at about midnight. Said something about going to the gym. You seemed pretty frustrated over whatever you were studying. Hunk and I passed out on the floor and when Hunk woke  me up, you were still gone.”

_So I did blackout?_

Keith frowns at Lance’s version of events. The campus had a gym that was open 24/7 and it wasn’t unusual for him to go there when he needed to blow off steam, but he couldn’t remember it. He couldn’t even remember leaving the apartment.

“Wait, you _are_ serious.” Lance frowns while knitting his brows together, “I thought you didn’t have blackouts anymore?”

Keith ignores the question in favor of pulling his bloodied t-shirt over his head and tossing it in an overflowing hamper. While Lance watches him expectantly, Keith scoops up a forgotten Ramones shirt from the floor and pulls it on after a quick sniff for cleanliness.

“Keith.”

“Don’t you have a class?” Keith arches a brow while sitting on his bed and unlacing his boots.

Once again, Lance’s eyes light up with questionable excitement, “Didn’t you read my texts? There was a fire last night in Copernicus. All labs are canceled so they can clean up the mess”

Keith makes a face at the news, “Sounds like arson.”

“Right?” Lance snorts with a scoff, “I mean it’s not even mid-terms yet.”

Keith rolls his eyes at the joke. He doesn’t ask but he can only assume by Lance’s comedic timing that no one got hurt.

“Pidge said they’ve got the whole entrance blocked off with caution tape. From what I’ve heard, they don’t even know what started it but I mean, who cares, right? No labs.” Lance tosses the paper plate into the trashcan beneath Keith’s desk, “Pidge wants to meet at Johnny Rockets for a burger and a shake later. You should come.”

If Lance and him hadn’t been friends since their freshman year of college, Keith would’ve questioned just what Lance’s bottomless pit of a stomach was made of.

“Yeah, sure.” Keith confirms as he kicks his boots off and stands, “Now can I finish getting dressed or are you hoping for a peep show?” He teases while pulling a pair of jeans out of his dresser.

“Gross.” Lance twists his face up in mock disgust before exiting the room with a laugh.

With Lance out of the room, Keith peels off his jeans and examines the bloodied knee. He doesn’t think twice about using his thumb and some spit to wipe the dried blood away before pulling on a new pair of jeans.

Upon looking for a pair of keds at the bottom of his closet, it finally occurs to him that his gym bag is missing.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

He grunts in frustration as he scans his room for the duffel bag in question.

When he can’t find it, he pulls on a pair of skate shoes that have seen significantly better days and stumbles back out into the living room where Lance has sprawled out on the couch to watch cartoons, “Did I take my gym bag with me last night?”

Lance shrugs, “I don’t know, man.”

“I can’t find it.” Keith continues while grabbing a red bomber jacket off the back of the couch Lance is currently occupying.

“Uhh,” Lance begins half-heartedly, “check the gym?”

A part of Keith considers strangling Lance for his lack of interest in his dilemma but he thinks better of it. Instead, he decides that he’s better off heading down to the gym to see if he’d left it in his locker or if someone found it. If it’s there, he might be able to find someone to fill in some of his missing time.

* * *

 

Keith takes the bus to campus and despite the science and engineering building being quarantined off, the campus is still alive with its normal hustle and bustle. With the weather warm for October, he finds an art class outside on the lawn working on perspective drawings of campus buildings while other students soak in the sun on blankets or benches.

As he walks downhill from the academic buildings and towards the dormitories, he narrowly avoids colliding with a guy on a longboard near the student center and walks past a cluster of girls chatting animatedly at a table near the commuters cafeteria.

Past the courtyard, he enters a building that’s covered in murals and ignores strangers who give his beat up face a double-take. The gym is towards the back of the building, opposite a conference room. The sunlight streams in from floor length windows and Keith squints at the light. He’s relieved that the place is mostly empty aside from two girls on treadmills and a small group of guys lifting weights towards the back.

At the front desk, he recognizes a senior biology student, Allura. At the sound of the bell above his head, she looks up, “Hey Keith--whoa, what happened to your face?” She visibly winces at the sight of him, “Don’t tell me you got into a fight?”

“Uh, no--I mean, maybe--probably not.” His lack of tact is astounding even to himself. He scratches at the back of his neck awkwardly when Allura gives him a disbelieving look. While he wasn’t as close to Allura as he was with Lance or even Pidge, the two had run into each other at the gym enough times to develop a friendship. She was friendly enough.

Keith sighs with defeat, “Look, this is going to sound really stupid but I can’t remember anything from last night.”

Allura furrows her brows in concern and twists her lips to the side of her mouth in consideration, “That’s _weird_.”

For a lack of a better term, it was _weird_.

“Maybe you should go to the health center?”

That’s the last thing Keith wants to do. The last time he blacked out was in high school and it became a tiring ordeal for not only himself but his foster family as well. It was a time in his life that he really didn’t want to relive.

“I will,” He lies, “Lance thinks I came here last night. Do you know if anyone found a gym bag?”

Allura doesn’t seem convinced but at the question, she rolls a shoulder, “I can check the lost and found in the back. If you want, you can have a look in the locker room.”

As Allura walks into the backroom, Keith heads toward the locker room around the side. He quickly finds his locker and pulling out his key-chain, he opens the locker. Part of him expects to find nothing. Part of him _wants_ to find nothing.

There's an indescribable pit of anxiety forming in his stomach when he finds the duffel bag at the bottom of the locker.  

He pulls the bag out and sits it on a nearby bench. With unsteady fingers, he unzips the bag and looks through his typical gym clothes. He almost laughs at himself for getting worried over nothing but when he gets to the bottom of the bag, his hand brushes over something hard. He finds a dark gray hoodie that's been bundled up and once he unfolds it, he discovers a hammer and a pair of batting gloves. As he pulls the hoodie out of the bag and holds it up, it's stained with dried blood. Dried blood that he only hope belongs to him. 

_What the fuck happened last night?_

A wave of nausea and panic washes over him as he hurriedly puts everything back into the bag and zips it up. He slams the locker shut and pulls the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder as he makes a hasty escape towards the locker room exit.

Up until then, he believed the night was best left forgotten and that he could move on. Instead, he was carrying around what he hoped wasn’t evidence to a crime scene he couldn’t remember being at.

He wants to get far away from the campus and figure out just what kind of shit he’s gotten himself into.

“Oh, you found it!”

He hears Allura call out from behind the counter but he doesn’t spare her so much as a glance as he bolts out the door.

He was certain the brush off would come to bite him in the ass later on, but for now, he didn’t care.

 


End file.
